The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
7 hours ago
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Blockade: Dockers respond to Israel’s Flotilla Massacre and Gaza Siege
At 5am on Sunday 20th June, 800 trade unionists and Palestine solidarity activists from the San Francisco Bay Area marched to the SSA (Stevedoring Services of America) terminal at Berths 57-58 in the Port of Oakland, where the “Zim Shenzhen” was due. Zim Lines is the main Israeli shipping company, with services connecting Israel to the world. The ship sailed from Haifa, calling at Piraeus, Livorno, Genoa, Tarragona, Halifax, New York, Savannah, Kingston, Panama Canal, Los Angeles before reaching Oakland.
When longshore workers turned up for the day shift a mass demo was in place at four gates chanting “Free, Free Palestine, Don’t You Cross Our Picket Line”. . .“An Injury to One is An Injury to All, Bring Down the Apartheid Wall”. . .“Open the Siege, Close the Gate, Israel is a Terrorist State”. . . As union members spoke to drivers, pickets sat down in front of cars. The San Francisco Labor Council and the Alameda County Labor Council had passed their own resolutions and mobilised hundreds of trade unionists to back the demo called by the Labor Community Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People. It was an unprecedented show of strength from the local and regional AFL-CIO, affiliated unions and their members side by side with Palestinian and Arab-American activists. The Gaza ships were originally organised by Paul Larudee from San Francisco, and Bay Area residents had sailed with him. Now everyone came together for a united action organised in just two weeks.
Local 10 and Local 34 (clerical) are militant sections of the International Longshore Workers Union. The ILWU organises longshore (dockers) and many other industrial sectors on the US West Coast and Hawaii. With a history stretching back to 1934, the ILWU has faced the employers in countless disputes on the docks, carried out industrial solidarity action with other workers, fought against racism, adopted resolutions which characterize the Israeli oppression of Palestinians as “state-sponsored terrorism”, and on May 1st 2008 shut down every port on the US West Coast against the war in Iraq. Labor laws in the U. S. like the Taft-Hartley Act make it illegal for unions to organize solidarity actions.
The Oakland longshore workers arrived for the day shift and refused to cross the picket line on grounds of “health and safety”. The Pacific Maritime Association, on behalf of the employer SSA, immediately called in the Arbitrator (a joint union-management procedure for first-line response to disputes on the docks) hoping he would order everyone to work. The Arbitrator considered the PMA demand that the police use force to open access through the picket line, to make it “safe” for workers to enter the terminal. The union argued that the Oakland police are a threat to the security of workers and demonstrators. In 2003, as the U. S. attacked Iraq, Oakland police fired so-called “non lethal” weapons at longshore workers and anti-war demonstrators alike, injuring scores and sending many to hospital.
The Arbitrator agreed with the union. As per their contract, the dockers were sent home with pay for standing by, however the employers have refused to abide by the Arbitrator’s decision and have paid out nothing, leaving the issue in dispute.
The “Zim Shenzen” had left Los Angeles around 2:30pm Saturday, and could have could have arrived at the San Francisco pilot station in as little as 18 hours, plus 2 hours to the dock. The ship’s tracking system was removed from the nautical GPS system, leaving the demo guessing when it would arrive. But with several hundred marching at 5:30am swelling to 800 as the morning progressed, the company decided to hold up the docking until 6pm. By then, SSA Terminal realised that the mass picket line would return for the evening shift and the Arbitrator would make the same decision, so they gave up and prudently chose not to call longshoremen to report for work. The ship sat at the quay, untouched. Establishing the mass picket line early and preventing longshoremen and clerks from working the terminal was critical in this victory.
This was the first ever boycott of an Israeli ship by workers in the US, where Zionism has counted on influencing the traditional stance of the mainstream labor movement, as well as elected politicians.
“An Injury to One is An Injury to All” is the slogan of the ILWU. It is also an emblem for South African workers...
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The Spot-and-Shoot Game Remote-Controlled Killing
Spot and Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people -- Palestinians in Gaza -- who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.
The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza.
The system is one of the latest “remote killing” devices developed by Israel’s Rafael armaments company, the former weapons research division of the Israeli army and now a separate governmental firm.
According to Giora Katz, Rafael’s vice-president, remote-controlled military hardware such as Spot and Shoot is the face of the future. He expects that within a decade at least a third of the machines used by the Israeli army to control land, air and sea will be unmanned.
The demand for such devices, the Israeli army admits, has been partly fuelled by a combination of declining recruitment levels and a population less ready to risk death in combat.
Oren Berebbi, head of its technology branch, recently told an American newspaper: “We’re trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield … We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk.”
Rapid progress with the technology has raised alarm at the United Nations. Philip Alston, its special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned last month of the danger that a “PlayStation mentality to killing” could quickly emerge...
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Jonathan Cook @'Counterpunch'
Wealth Resdistribution
Conservatives need to recognize that the most pernicious sort of redistribution isn’t from the successful to the poor. It’s from savers to speculators, from outsiders to insiders, and from the industrious middle class to the reckless, unproductive rich.Ross Duthat @'NY Times'
Indian Tribe's Livelihood Threatened by Mining
To be a Dongria Kondh is to live in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa state, India - they do not live anywhere else. Yet Vedanta Resources is determined to mine their sacred mountain's rich seam of bauxite (aluminium ore).
Mine: Story of a Sacred Mountain
Watch Survival’s 10 minute film ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’ narrated by Joanna Lumley
The Dongria farm the hill slopes, grow crops in among the forest and gather wild fruit and leaves for sale.
There are over 8000 members of the tribe, living in villages scattered throughout the Niyamgiri Hills.
They call themselves Jharnia, meaning ‘protector of streams’, because they protect their sacred mountains and the life-giving rivers that rise within its thick forests.
To the Dongria, Niyam Dongar hill is the seat of their god, Niyam Raja. To Vedanta it is a $2billion deposit of bauxite.
Vedanta’s open pit mine would destroy the forests, disrupt the rivers and spell the end of the Dongria Kondh as a distinct people.
The Dongria, and neighbouring Kondh tribals who also revere Niyam Raja, are determined to protect their sacred mountain.
They have held road blocks, a human chain and countless demonstrations against the company.
A Vedanta jeep was set alight when it was driven onto the sacred plateau.
Vedanta has come here to destroy the Dongria. We will drive them away. They don’t have any right to touch our mountains. Even if you behead us, we are not going to allow this.Rajendra VadakaIn 2009 India’s Minster for Environment and Forests stated ‘There is still hope for Niyamgiri’ and the Ministry is currently investigating the project.
In 2010 the Church of England withdrew its investments from Vedanta stating that the company had failed to show, ‘The level of respect for human rights and local communities that we expect.’
The Norwegian Government and investment firm Martin Currie have also sold their shares in Vedanta Resources over concerns for human rights.
International pressure to save the Dongria Kondh is mounting.
Act now to help the Dongria Kondh
Your support is vital if the Dongria Kondh are to survive. There are many ways you can help.
* Write to India’s Minister of Environment and Forests asking him to safeguard the Dongria Kondh’s rights.
* Donate to the Dongria Kondh campaign (and other Survival campaigns).
* Write to your MP or MEP (UK) or Senators and members of Congress (US).
* Write to your local Indian high commission or embassy.
* If you want to get more involved, contact Survival…
Pegi Young - Starting Over
After spending a number of years on the road as a backup singer for her husband, Neil Young, Pegi Young began recording her own material in the early 2000s. Pegi began writing songs in high school, but found little time to pursue a solo career in the wake of caring for her son, Ben (who was born with cerebral palsy), touring with her husband, and co-founding the Bridge School. She recorded her meditative, Americana-tinged self-titled debut in 2006; it featured numerous cameos, including appearances by the Jordanaires, former members of Crazy Horse, and her husband. The album was released on Warner Bros. the following year. Her follow-up album, Foul Deeds, was released on Vapor Records in 2010. Young wrote or co-wrote three of the album's nine songs; the rest are covers by likely and unlikely sources including Lucinda Williams ("Side of the Road") and Devendra Banhart ("Body Breaks"). Her backing band included pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith, while her guests included her husband and Spooner Oldham.
The follow-up to Pegi Young's self-titled 2006 debut reaches farther than its predecessor. Young's voice here is fuller, though it still contains its inherent reedy, smoky quality; it's still somewhat plaintive, but she uses it to get exactly what she needs to serve these songs. Her band includes pedal steel guitarist and co-producer Keith, guitarist and pianist Anthony Crawford, bassist Rick Rosas, and either Phil Jones or Karl Himmell on drums. Husband Neil Young and Spooner Oldham reprise their sporadic guest roles from her debut. The set thematically examines emotions as complex as grief, loss, redemption, the acceptance of change, and heartbreak, but it's hardly depressing. Foul Deeds includes four covers and five originals with an untitled track hidden after the end. The most notable of the covers includes the opening country rocker "Pleasing to Me" by Will Jennings, a truly gorgeous reading of Lucinda Williams "Side of the Road" that actually lends depth to the already beautiful lyrics; and the closer and album standout: a lilting, deeply moving version of Devendra Banhart's "Body Breaks." Young and Oldham appear on the latter two. Of the originals, the title track, a vulnerable country waltz that expresses regret and repentance for unnamed transgressions, the 2-stepping country shuffle of "Who Knew," and the sparse, elegiac waltz "Traveling" are standouts. Foul Deeds reflects Young's growing confidence as a songwriter, singer, and producer. It appears that she knows exactly where she wants to go and exactly how to get there.
Do NOT Feed the Homeless or Else...
In the squeaky-clean fantasy world of Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, the homeless are an unwelcome reminder of reality. So reviled are the homeless in Orlando—it is considered the third meanest city for the homeless in the country and it has been ranked number one for the last four years as the city that is the most violent toward the homeless—that Orlando has now decided that requiring "beggar badges" and turning a blind eye to violent attacks (Last year, a homeless woman in Pompano Beach was raped and nearly strangled. Earlier in the year, two homeless men in West Palm Beach were shot and killed and a Fort Lauderdale man was accused of harassing the homeless with a chainsaw) is not enough to dehumanize the homeless, now we also need to starve them. At least if they happen to be eating around people that have homes.
This past Wednesday, a federal appeals-court overruled a lower court ruling that said the city could not prevent groups from feeding the homeless in the city parks. The court ruled that the law does not violate the First Amendment under Florida law. This overturns the 2008 ruling wherein a federal judge had ruled in favor of the homeless and their advocates in a decision that claimed that the law violated the homeless advocates constitutional right to free speech.
Orlando Food Not Bombs, a plaintiff in the case, had asserted that its meals expressed an explicit message to observers that society had to take care of and feed its homeless. But the court's decision on Wednesday found that the feedings were not expressive enough to constitute a perceptible free-speech claim. Per the First Amendment Center, the court held that "a party asserting a free-speech claim based on expressive conduct must establish (1) the intent to convey a particularized message and (2) that a reasonable observer would understand the message."
Additionally, the court wrote, “We accept that Orlando Food Not Bombs had the requisite expressive intent, but we believe that the feedings in this case present at most an ambiguous situation to an objective reasonable observer,” the appeals court wrote. “Just feeding people in the park is conduct too ambiguous to allow us to conclude that a great likelihood exists that an objective reasonable observer would understand that the feeders are trying to convey a message.”
The court also denied the free-exercise claim brought forth by Orlando Food Not Bombs by stating that the law was neutral in that it applied to any general group, not just Orlando food Not Bombs, as such they were able to use a "rational basis" standard to review the law wherein the court decided that "the city’s interest in reducing overall wear and tear on its parks was rational." If that is the case why not require permits for those 25 people to be in the park walking around—oh wait you can't do that but you can stop us from feeding them. Why not create permits for everyone who just wants to come in the park if "wear and tear" is your "rational concern?"
Orlando Food Not Bombs is, of course, asking for a rehearing of the case, in the meantime the members vow to continue feeding the homeless...
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Scott P @'Care2'
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Shahram Amiri: new twist in mystery of nuclear scientist's disappearance
Iran is gearing up to tell its version of the story of Shahram Amiri, the missing nuclear scientist whose sudden appearance at the Pakistani embassy in Washington has injected new drama into a long-running mystery.
Tehran had maintained that Amiri was kidnapped by the CIA, while US sources have hinted heavily that he is a defector who was giving valuable information about the Iranian nuclear programme.
As ever in the world of espionage, not everything is necessarily as it seems. Has the scientist really escaped the clutches of his purported captors – as he claimed in one bizarre video broadcast by Iran at the end of June? If so, that looks like a serious error by the US authorities. Could he, in fact, have been allowed to go free? Was he all along some sort of double agent, feeding false intelligence to his interrogators?
Iran has always insisted that Amiri, who disappeared while on the hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009, was abducted by American agents. The US denies the claim. Iranian state TV has shown videos of the scientist claiming kidnapping and torture. Saudi Arabia, which shares US concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and has poor relations with Tehran, has denied handing him over to the Americans.
Perhaps the only certainty is that the US and other western governments, as well as Israel, are involved in a major clandestine effort to gather intelligence on Iran's nuclear programme. Last September's revelation of a second uranium enrichment facility at Qom was public proof of that. Rumours of technical setbacks are attributed to deliberate sabotage. Occasional assassinations have taken place as well.
Experts have described Iran's as the most "penetrated" nuclear programme since the second world war-era Manhattan project – the US drive to build a nuclear weapons that was compromised by Soviet spies.
Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, said last month that Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium to produce two nuclear bombs within two years. Tehran dismissed that statement as "psychological war" and insists, as ever, that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.
If Amiri is now free to speak, he may be able to shed some light on a fascinating but inevitably obscure story. But the suspicion is that the requirements of propaganda will be paramount for everyone involved.
Ian Black @'The Guardian'
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